Back to the Future Part III (1990)

It took me a while to get going on the reviews for the Back to the Future trilogy.  Yes, I know that they came out over 30 years ago.  The first one was such an iconic movie that I wasn’t sure how to handle it.  The trilogy was also a bit of an anomaly to me in that it formed a continuous narrative, despite the fact that the second and third movies weren’t planned.  (It’s been noted that the second picks up where the first left off and this one picks up where the second left off.)

Part III goes in a new direction, taking us to the Old West.  It turns out that Doc was stranded in 1885, 70 years prior to the end of Part II.  (I’m not sure what it is with multiples of five.)   He writes Marty a note, to be delivered by Western Union, a few minutes after his disappearance.  Doc instructs Marty to find the Doc of 1955 so that they might repair the DeLorean and return Marty to 1985 once again.

Things aren’t that simple, though.  While retrieving the car, Marty and Doc discover a tombstone with Doc’s name on it.  He’s to die about a week after writing the letter.  So, a new plan is hatched:  Send Marty to 1885 to save Doc without altering the timeline.  Only, the fuel line is punctured, rendering the car inoperative.  The Flux Capacitor still works, but Mr. Fusion can’t power the car and there won’t be a gas station in town for quite some time.  So, it’s just a matter of figuring out a way to push the car to 88 MPH while keeping Doc alive for a week.  What could go wrong?

As much as I might hope for a Part IV, this is a fitting end for the franchise.  Everyone ends up happy and realizing that fate is what you make of it.  You just have to do so responsibly.  Yes, I know that there’s a TV show.  If I can find it on DVD, I might get around to watching it.  (I’ll have to see if the library has it.)

It was nice that there was a shift in the story to include Doc.  He even gets a love interest, which could complicate things.  I always felt sad when I saw the end of the movie.  Marty was stuck in 1985 while Doc got to go exploring time.  I suppose it’s possible that at some point in the future, Doc will meet Marty again.  (I’m assuming that this is what the TV series is about.)

Back to the Future seems to be a franchise that people either love or ignore.  I’ve always loved it, mostly because of its simplicity.  I’m sure that the movie’s representation of the Old West is simplistic, but it’s serving as a backdrop.  It’s more the setting for the story in which both main characters a great conclusion.  Marty McFly finally seems to learn his lesson and stops letting people push him around.  Also, Doc seems to be a happier person.  He has a family and the time machine that he originally wanted.  Both seem to have realized what’s important:  Life is what you make of it.

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Back to the Future Part II (1989)

Really good sequels are hard to come by.  I don’t know if it’s just me, but there was a time when follow-ups were little more than an attempt to get a little more money out of audiences.  Home Alone was cute.  The second one was unnecessary.  I have a vague recollection that others may have been made.

There are cases, like the Lord of the Rings movies that were planned all at once.  It’s not a series of movies, but rather one story told in installments.  For whatever reason, each entry into the franchise is solid and worthy of paying for another admission.

The Back to the Future trilogy is an odd occurrence.  The first movie was going to be one movie.  There was the final scene where Doc takes Marty and Jennifer into the future, but it was meant to be just that:  The final scene.  When the movie did well, two more movies were made, back to back.

Back to the Future Part II picks up where Part I left off.  Doc takes Marty and Jennifer into the future.  Doc tells Marty and Jennifer that their children are in trouble.  The DeLorean has been modified so that it can accept waste as fuel, making things easier.  Oh, and where they’re going, they don’t need roads.  The DeLorean can now fly.

There are a few signs that the sequel wasn’t planned.  Jennifer has to be sedated, as Doc can’t have her asking too many questions.  (From what I recall, her presence wasn’t though that far through.  Sedating her was easier than changing the end of Part I.)  It does lead to a little trouble, as she’s taken to her future house and meets herself.

Once Marty and Doc return to 1955, they soon realize that they have bigger problems.  Marty hatched the idea to take a sports almanac back with him.  Doc discovered the plan and admonished Marty.  Unfortunately, Biff overheard them arguing and stole the idea.

Biff took the DeLorean back to 1955 and gave the almanac to his younger self so that he might bet on stuff and win big, which he does.  This leads to Hill Valley (and the surrounding areas) becoming an urban wasteland.  Marty enters his house to discover another family living there.  Principal Strickland is reduced to chasing away newspaper thieves with a shotgun.  And the clock tower is now the BiffCo casino.

This leads to a somewhat complicated third act where Marty and Doc have to return to the past to set the present right again.  They also have to avoid their former selves so that the events of the first movie aren’t changed.  It takes Marty a lot longer than it should to retrieve the almanac, but he does and eventually burns it, setting things right.  The movie ends with the DeLorean being hit by lightening (with Doc inside) and being sent back to 1885.  Thus, we get to see some pre-credit coming attractions for Part III, which takes place in the Old West.

The most noticeable thing about the movie for some is the conspicuous product placement.  (Personally, I’m still waiting on that Black & Decker device to rehydrate my Pizza Hut carryout order.)  Fortunately, it’s not that bad.  It is fun to see the Café 80s, where Ayatollah Khomeini and Ronald Reagan have been given the Max Headroom treatment and compete to take your order.

Marty and Jennifer get to see where they live, which is nice.  One thing that’s always bothered me, though, was having kids that look like one of the parents.  Both Marty, Jr., and Marlene are played by Michael J. Fox.  With the son, I can understand.  An important plot point rests on this being the case.  Still, do we need to have both kids played by the same actor?  Not to mention that Thomas F. Wilson plays both Biff and his grandson Griff.

As with the first movie, people have raised questions, a few of which I have myself.  First, why didn’t time change around Marty and Doc when Biff came back from the past?  If this would be the case with Jennifer and Einstein, why not anyone else?  (It’s probably a conscious decision to allow for the story to hold together.  It is a bit odd, though.)  Also, how did Doc know to drop the rope at the end of the tunnel?  That was pretty good timing.  Maybe Doc got lucky.  Maybe not.  We may never know.

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Back to the Future (1985)

Note:  I will be giving away important details.  If you haven’t seen the movie, I won’t blame you for wanting to watch it before reading this.


It seems odd that Back to the Future would be considered a great film, yet it is.  Someone pointed out that the main character, Marty McFly, ends the movie the same way he began it.  He also has a lot of less-than-stellar people surrounding him.   The father, George McFly, is a loser and Biff’s yes man.  His mother, Lorraine McFly, is an alcoholic.  Both of his siblings, Dave and Linda, seem destined for low-end jobs.  That’s not even getting into Uncle "Jailbird Joey”.

He has two things going for him:  Girlfriend Jennifer Parker and best friend Dr. Emmett Brown.  It’s not clear why Doc and Marty are friends or how they met.  However, Doc seems to be a failed scientist.  Every invention he ever made didn’t work.  In fact, a strong case has been made that he’s suicidal.  (If you watch the video, be warned that it’s not safe for work.)  This is why it’s surprising that Doc is willing to test a brand-new time machine.

Not only does he test it, but it works.  He shows off the controls to Marty, demonstrating with several important dates.  The last one he puts in is November 5, 1955.  This is the date that Doc Brown invented time travel, or rather, the flux capacitor.   It provides the necessary 1.21 gigawatts of power necessary to propel the DeLorean through time.  Alas, before Doc can do any traveling of his own, the Libyans catch up with him.  (Don’t judge.  He had to get his plutonium from somewhere.)

Marty is able to escape to 1955, but soon discovers that it’s a one-way trip.  In the rush to avoid a machine gun, Marty neglected to take the spare plutonium with him.  He’s able to find Doc in 1955 and get back home.  The catch is that he has to wait a week, during which he interferes with his parents’ first meeting.  He does get them back together with some interesting consequences.

When I first saw the suicidal Doc theory, I have to admit that I found it interesting.  There were a few things that I missed, like what exactly was Doc doing hanging a clock in the bathroom?  Also, why hadn’t Doc done any sort of small-scale test on the DeLorean?  Really?

I tend to look at it another way, though.  If the suicide theory is true, Doc does eventually get his wish.  It’s a shame that he finally has a working invention right before his demise, but he does die.  When Marty goes back to 1955, Doc finds out that he has a working invention, giving him thirty years to think about it.  He heeds Marty’s warning and chooses to use a bullet-proof vest.

The argument could be made that Marty is a good influence on those around him.  Not only does he make life better for his family, but he gives Doc something to live for.   (Sure, Doc always had something to live for.  It just took Marty to show him.)

I remember reading once that Back to the Future was odd in that Mary didn’t really learn anything.  He did seem to inspire things in others.  In fact, there was some question as to whether the parents knew who Marty was in the altered time line.  We know that Doc did, as he was in on it.  Marty introduced himself and explained everything.

I would say that Lorraine probably didn’t.  Marty didn’t have much interaction with her.  In fact, of all the people Marty interacted with in both 1985 and 1955, the only person Marty dealt with less was Mr. Strickland.  On the other hand, Marty had to deal with his father to help train him to be more assertive.

To that end, we see three people on the cover of George’s book.  There are the two teenagers, presumably representing a George-like and a Lorraine-like character.  Between them is none other than Darth Vader of Vulcan.  To say that Marty made an impression on him is an understatement.

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Flight (2012)

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.

I had wanted to see Flight in theaters.  It looked like an interesting premise.  A pilot played by Denzel Washington is able to safely land a plane, but catches flak for it.  I was interested to see how this played out.  I figured most of the movie would be about the aftermath, which it was.  I eventually got to rent the movie through Redbox.

The pilot’s name is Will “Whip” Whitaker.  He’s piloting an Orlando-to-Atlanta flight.  He manages to take off during heavy rain.  He’s able to skillfully land the plane when a mechanical failure occurs. He’s also drunk and stoned out of his mind the whole time.  Of the 108 people onboard the plane, only six die.  He managed, while impaired, to pull off what most people couldn’t even attempt sober.

That’s not the point, though.  He never should have been on that plane.  We know it. His lawyer and friends know it.  Whittaker even throws out all of his alcohol, but the message doesn’t seem to take.  He has no problem placing blame on a defective part.  (I suppose if I were facing the possibility of six felony counts, I would do the same.)

Most of the movie is spent preparing for an NTSB hearing.  This makes giving a detailed analysis difficult.  There’s a lot of legal maneuvering and a lot of trying to keep Whittaker sober.  This isn’t easy.  At the start of the movie, he finishes a warm beer and snorts a line.  While talking to passengers before takeoff, he makes a family-sized screwdriver.  (Before you leave a comment, he actually pours several mini vodkas into a large container of orange juice.)

Normally, I hate movies like this.  It’s painful to watch someone on a downward spiral.  The movie isn’t heavy handed about the alcoholism, though.  Yes, he makes a lot of bad choices.  Yes, every time he blames the mechanical failure, I know that he knows that he shouldn’t have been in the plane.  On the other hand, I found myself hoping that he’d avoid trouble.  He’s as functional as they come, but he had no business endangering over 100 people.  Here’s someone that should have gone to AA a long time ago, but has always found a reason not to.  (There was one point in the movie that I felt was a little painful to watch, but I can understand why it was included.)

This is not a movie for children.  Aside from the drugs and sex, there are a lot of things that young children wouldn’t understand.  They may not get the subtleties of the maneuvering.  They may not understand why or how Whittaker could come across as someone we could empathize with.  I think if I had seen this movie when I was 10 or 15, I would have had a totally different take on it.  I would have seen Whittaker simply as a drunk who happened to get lucky.  Which he is, in a way.  He’s a man who knows that he’s wrong, but can’t quite come to terms with his demons. 

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Contact (1997)

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.


Jodie Foster plays Dr. Elli Arroway, a radio astronomer. She was raised by her father, who gave her a strong interest in astronomy. She spends a great deal of her adult life looking for extraterrestrial life, mostly with SETI. Things are rough. Most government bureaucrats aren’t willing to finance the search for little green men, so Dr. Arroway has to spend a lot of time looking for funding. Fortunately, she’s able to secure enough to rent radio telescopes, which scan the heavens for some sort of coherent signal.

Finally, just as everyone’s about to give up hope, a signal comes in. It’s these loud, booming noises. Dr. Arroway and her team realize that the noises are grouped in prime numbers. Prime numbers are numbers that are divisible by only themselves and one, such as 2 and 5. (1 isn’t considered a prime number by many for reasons I won’t go into here.) Any intelligent civilization should know what a prime number is because primes are independent of what base we use for our numbering system. The signal is very interesting. It’s so interesting that the government wants a part of it. Dr. Arroway and her team are allowed to research it, but at the governments direction.

Some interesting things are learned about the clip. First, there’s a clip of Hitler speaking at the 1936 Olympics. The 1936 Olympics was the first TV signal strong enough to go into space. The aliens, whoever they are, apparently recorded the signal and sent it back to us. Is this an endorsement for the Nazis or is it simply a way of saying, “Hey! Look what we found!” After a little more digging, dozens of diagrams are uncovered. No one can figure out what they are. Finally, Dr. Arroway gets the nudge she needs to figure out how they work.

They’re actually blueprints. America is able to construct this big sphere that sits atop a device that can (presumably) send it through space. The scientific community is at a loss to explain how it works. No one is really sure that it will, but we decide to try anyway. After a lot of hard work and sacrifice, we finally manage to get Dr. Arroway into the sphere and through the device.

Here’s where I’m going to end the plot review. There’s still a significant portion of the movie left, and there’s really no way I can handle it without giving away too much. The movie does a good job of setting up the story and leaving us wondering what will come of the events. In a way, I’d like to see a sequel, but it’s just as well that there isn’t one. I think to try and answer the questions I have might spoil the fun.

There’s a constant theme of science vs. religion throughout the movie. Elle Arroway needs proof. She can’t fully accept religion because it offers no real proof. Then there’s Palmer Joss, who’s religious and tries to make the case for religion without trying to force it upon anyone. It almost seems that religion and science are polar opposites. The X-Files did a better job using Scully, who was both religious and a scientist, to stage the question and to show that you don’t have to be one or the other.

The movie is based on the book of the same name by Carl Sagan. In writing the book, Sagan had to deal not only with how a race would contact us but with the logistics of how a meeting would take place. The nearest star to us is 4 light years away. That means that it takes light 4 years to cover the distance to that star, and there’s no way that we can pass the speed of light with our current understanding of science.

The movie doesn’t really explain too much the science. As I said, we’re presented with an option that might turn out to be a fraud. It’s really a story that’s accessible to anyone, regardless of their understanding of physics or astronomy. I think I could recommend this movie to just about anyone.


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